In today's Office of Readings extracanonical passage from a letter to Diognetus, we gain a clear insight into how Christianity could have blossomed in the early Church, as well as what is chiefly wrong with us today. I find it closely related to my Lenten reflections on what it really means to follow the Way of the Cross. I also find myself wondering whether I will ever live up to my calling.
I've speculated that the calling of all Christians is to bear everything, even (especially!) our hurts, with love and joy. But we remain unwilling to bear a wrong done unto us with the love of Christ. Rather than see our cross as a joy to be embraced, we view it as a burden to avoid at every opportunity. In recent weeks I've had opportunity to reflect on this as various brothers and sisters in the Lord have shared their challenges in this area.
We too often fail to be transformed in Christ in this one area that most defined His love. We insist on valuing our self - our status, possessions, security, comfort, and pleasure - ahead of honoring and serving those around us. This morning, as I took on a household chore that I judged my wife should have at least made progress on, my attitude was not that of a loving husband embracing the opportunity to make his wife's day a little better. Instead, my heart was full of resentment, over debris not having been rinsed off of the dishes I was washing and over the time I was losing at the beginning of my workday that would prevent me from leaving when I hoped to at the end thereof.
My chore was a good thing, but approaching it as a ministry would have been far better. A reader may think I'm holding myself to an impossible standard. Still, I know that given a chance to minister this morning, I was more Martha than Mary in my approach to the task at hand.
Does the Holy Spirit dwell in us or not? If so, we must ask this Counselor to transform us in ways that are impossible by our own efforts.
Come, Holy Spirit. Fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, and we shall be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Now I can die in peace?
Okay, that might be a little extreme. Still, after consistently being dropped by my cycling group pretty much every time out, and last year resigning myself to the fact that I'd never be able to keep up, I hung with them pretty well for an entire 50-miler yesterday. Woo-hoo!!
(Man, are my legs tired!)
(Man, are my legs tired!)
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
More from St. Augustine
As a music minister, I was especially moved by St. Augustine's words in today's Office of Readings.
That's "today's" as in "the day I posted this," not necessarily "the day you read this," which after today - by the definition in this parenthetical - would be a different link, in all probability won't contain anything by St. Augustine, but is still probably worth your time!
Sometimes we musicians tend to think our primary prayer is our song. After all, it was St. Augustine who also said that to sing is to pray twice. But this reading makes it clear that our primary prayer must be to live in Christ's love.
I still struggle with this, hesitant to yield my will over some parts of my life. It's hard to fully accept that embracing God's will results in greater joy and love than chasing my own. After all, isn't our primary objection that "we don't want to miss out on all the 'fun'!"
St. Augustine was intimately familiar with that perspective, too.
I knew this was my second post from St. Augustine, but it took me a while to find the first, two years and two days ago, on a completely different reading, since Easter was later that year . . . This blog was practically brand new then!
That's "today's" as in "the day I posted this," not necessarily "the day you read this," which after today - by the definition in this parenthetical - would be a different link, in all probability won't contain anything by St. Augustine, but is still probably worth your time!
Sometimes we musicians tend to think our primary prayer is our song. After all, it was St. Augustine who also said that to sing is to pray twice. But this reading makes it clear that our primary prayer must be to live in Christ's love.
I still struggle with this, hesitant to yield my will over some parts of my life. It's hard to fully accept that embracing God's will results in greater joy and love than chasing my own. After all, isn't our primary objection that "we don't want to miss out on all the 'fun'!"
St. Augustine was intimately familiar with that perspective, too.
I knew this was my second post from St. Augustine, but it took me a while to find the first, two years and two days ago, on a completely different reading, since Easter was later that year . . . This blog was practically brand new then!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
My namesake
Most years, the gospel for the 2nd Sunday of Easter features my patron saint. My mom made sure I always knew I'd been named for "doubting Thomas," and it's true that I've followed his example a bit more than I'd like to admit.
But I've also had a lot of opportunity to reflect on my patron. His dubiousness toward his peers' reports of Jesus' resurrection isn't his only unique mention in Scripture, and I can't help but believe that an earlier story provides a helpful insight into Thomas' skepticism.
Not long before, Jesus was readying his followers to return to Bethany, so he could raise his friend Lazarus from the dead. The disciples objected, reminding Jesus that "they'd" tried to stone him the last time he was near Jerusalem. Yet once Jesus made his determination clear, it was Thomas who seemed to rally the other apostles: "Let's go die with him." Yet subsequent events revealed that this may have been mostly mere bravado. When Jesus was arrested, the apostles abandoned him. It must have been humiliating for all of them to consider, but especially for Thomas and Peter, who'd both so clearly declared their willingness to die with the Lord.
So I believe it was a totally crushed man who first received his friends' remarkable news of this miraculous event - which they'd witnessed for themselves but he had not, and in which he could not dare invest his hope. Our greatest personal devastation comes when we know we've failed those we love; it is multiplied beyond bearing when we've done so after foolhardily declaring our intention to stand firm, and in plain view. "Even if Jesus were somehow alive, surely he wouldn't still want anything to do with me . . . ," he might have thought. That Jesus would have appeared to the rest of them in his absence might have further confirmed this thinking. Better to disbelieve them than further consider the implications if it were true.
When we think we've committed ourselves completely to someone we love, only to fall so pitifully short - and in the clear sight of everyone we respect - it takes something truly remarkable to restore us. But once that happens, we are stronger and more whole than we were before.
Only a personal, undeniable encounter with the risen Christ could restore Thomas to himself. I think that's often the only way we can be restored, too. Few of us today have a physical encounter with our risen Savior, but He still reveals Himself to us through the Holy Spirit. He will do so, if we ask Him to. He is always willing to meet us where we are, if we're only willing to be open to Him when He does.
But I've also had a lot of opportunity to reflect on my patron. His dubiousness toward his peers' reports of Jesus' resurrection isn't his only unique mention in Scripture, and I can't help but believe that an earlier story provides a helpful insight into Thomas' skepticism.
Not long before, Jesus was readying his followers to return to Bethany, so he could raise his friend Lazarus from the dead. The disciples objected, reminding Jesus that "they'd" tried to stone him the last time he was near Jerusalem. Yet once Jesus made his determination clear, it was Thomas who seemed to rally the other apostles: "Let's go die with him." Yet subsequent events revealed that this may have been mostly mere bravado. When Jesus was arrested, the apostles abandoned him. It must have been humiliating for all of them to consider, but especially for Thomas and Peter, who'd both so clearly declared their willingness to die with the Lord.
So I believe it was a totally crushed man who first received his friends' remarkable news of this miraculous event - which they'd witnessed for themselves but he had not, and in which he could not dare invest his hope. Our greatest personal devastation comes when we know we've failed those we love; it is multiplied beyond bearing when we've done so after foolhardily declaring our intention to stand firm, and in plain view. "Even if Jesus were somehow alive, surely he wouldn't still want anything to do with me . . . ," he might have thought. That Jesus would have appeared to the rest of them in his absence might have further confirmed this thinking. Better to disbelieve them than further consider the implications if it were true.
When we think we've committed ourselves completely to someone we love, only to fall so pitifully short - and in the clear sight of everyone we respect - it takes something truly remarkable to restore us. But once that happens, we are stronger and more whole than we were before.
Only a personal, undeniable encounter with the risen Christ could restore Thomas to himself. I think that's often the only way we can be restored, too. Few of us today have a physical encounter with our risen Savior, but He still reveals Himself to us through the Holy Spirit. He will do so, if we ask Him to. He is always willing to meet us where we are, if we're only willing to be open to Him when He does.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Love is a choice
"I'm sorry I've been such a pain these last few days," she said, after we'd both climbed into bed and kissed good night. Yes, she'd been pretty irritable, and until earlier in the evening I'd thought she was mad at me over how busy I was. Holy Week is always insane for me, and this year had been unusual in that the week before had been no less hectic. Still, I'd made a sincere effort to be more present and helpful during the time I was home, and had to fight off my own pique over my contributions not being more appreciated. It wasn't much of an effort, but still one that I found I had to make consciously.
"That's okay," I responded gently, "it just gave me a chance to choose to love you." In fact, I had just journaled about something like this in the wee hours of the morning.
She didn't understand what I meant, and asked me to clarify.
"Well, usually it's easy to love you. But I'm not only supposed to love you when it's easy; I'm supposed to keep loving you when it doesn't come so naturally, too," I explained, concluding, "And I was really glad to."
"You always know what to say," she answered, clearly pleased and also lightly teasing.
But the thing is, it wasn't so much a matter of saying the right thing as of really having experienced this dimension of love, which we seem to miss so often. It's as if we've become largely incapable of loving with anything except our emotions. But I'm convinced it's the way that we love when we don't especially feel like it that actually paves the way for those loving emotions to become more consistent within us.
"That's okay," I responded gently, "it just gave me a chance to choose to love you." In fact, I had just journaled about something like this in the wee hours of the morning.
She didn't understand what I meant, and asked me to clarify.
"Well, usually it's easy to love you. But I'm not only supposed to love you when it's easy; I'm supposed to keep loving you when it doesn't come so naturally, too," I explained, concluding, "And I was really glad to."
"You always know what to say," she answered, clearly pleased and also lightly teasing.
But the thing is, it wasn't so much a matter of saying the right thing as of really having experienced this dimension of love, which we seem to miss so often. It's as if we've become largely incapable of loving with anything except our emotions. But I'm convinced it's the way that we love when we don't especially feel like it that actually paves the way for those loving emotions to become more consistent within us.
Holy Thursday/Good Friday adoration
Every year I watch during one of the wee hours of our open adoration between the Mass of the Lord's Supper and morning prayer on Good Friday. Every time it is one of my favorite hours of the entire year. Here are the first of my notes from this hour:
I feel very distant from my bride.
My Bridegroom would seem to have me know that, while her distance is not His desire, it is yet His gift to me. It is but the smallest taste of the separation He feels for His beloved, the bitter truth that marked His agony. The burden of our sin could not help but be accompanied with the sadness of knowing that so many whose sins He carried with Him to Calvary would yet reject Him, even resent Him, though He did nothing that was not the Father's will. Yet rather than react to the hurt of our rejection by rejecting us in return, our deareast Jesus responds by embracing us in love - indeed, in the greatest love there can be, laying down His life for us - even though it causes Him so much more pain before it can bring forth the joy of our deliverance into Him.
Still today He tastes the unspeakably bitter gall of our separation from Him. "If we are the Body," then we are part tongue, and we must taste it, too, and yet respond as does our Head: always with the sweet embrace of self-sacrificing love.
I feel very distant from my bride.
My Bridegroom would seem to have me know that, while her distance is not His desire, it is yet His gift to me. It is but the smallest taste of the separation He feels for His beloved, the bitter truth that marked His agony. The burden of our sin could not help but be accompanied with the sadness of knowing that so many whose sins He carried with Him to Calvary would yet reject Him, even resent Him, though He did nothing that was not the Father's will. Yet rather than react to the hurt of our rejection by rejecting us in return, our deareast Jesus responds by embracing us in love - indeed, in the greatest love there can be, laying down His life for us - even though it causes Him so much more pain before it can bring forth the joy of our deliverance into Him.
Still today He tastes the unspeakably bitter gall of our separation from Him. "If we are the Body," then we are part tongue, and we must taste it, too, and yet respond as does our Head: always with the sweet embrace of self-sacrificing love.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Deliverance from slavery, death
I mentioned in prayer the other day that our path from Egypt to the promised land, that is, from our slavery to sin to our joy and freedom in Christ, is the way of the cross. Of course, we understand that Christ's sacrifice was the price for our deliverance, that He is our water and manna in the desert (symbols that had far greater meaning to those who lived in that environment in a far more technologically primitive time than ours), that he is our way into the loving kingdom of God the Father.
Yet what was foremost in my mind is more along the lines of my last post. It isn't that we must purchase our own deliverance and freedom by sacrificing ourselves as Christ did. Rather, if we have truly received this wondrous gift, one of the ways we will share it with others is to love as Christ did, with self-sacrificial abandon.
"As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
The more we love in this way, the more we will discover ourselves living in the freedom of Christ's love rather than our former self-centered slavery and death.
Yet what was foremost in my mind is more along the lines of my last post. It isn't that we must purchase our own deliverance and freedom by sacrificing ourselves as Christ did. Rather, if we have truly received this wondrous gift, one of the ways we will share it with others is to love as Christ did, with self-sacrificial abandon.
"As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
The more we love in this way, the more we will discover ourselves living in the freedom of Christ's love rather than our former self-centered slavery and death.
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